make sacrifices and instructs Job to intercede for them. Thereafter Job is blessed with seven sons and three beautiful daughters and twice as much livestock as he had before. Living for 140 years longer, Job dies “old and satisfied with days.”​—Job 42:1-17.

Truly the book of Job enlightens us as to why God allows evil, why he permits the righteous to suffer. He has done this to prove false Satan’s boast that he can turn all men away from God. At the same time this gives all lovers of God and of righteousness the opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of their worship, proving themselves keepers of integrity. Will you be one of these? If so, you may have the reward of everlasting life that Jehovah God holds out to all of his faithful servants. This has been made possible by the sacrifice of that greatest of integrity-keepers, Jesus Christ.​—John 3:16.

Questions From Readers

● Did Adam have reddish skin, as his name has been said to suggest?

No one on earth today can say with certainty what Adam’s skin color was. We do know, however, that he was the progenitor of all humans, with all the variety of skin colors that now exist. But why does the idea come up that Adam’s skin may have had a reddish hue?

The Hebrew word adam is translated “Adam.” In addition to being a name, it means and is rendered “man” or “earthling man,” either one man or mankind in general on earth. (Gen. 1:26; 6:7; 7:21; 9:6; 1 Sam. 15:29) The word adam is related to another Hebrew word, adamah, which means “earth” or “ground.” The prevailing view among Hebrew scholars is that both of these words are drawn from the Hebrew adom, which means “red.” The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (1974), in offering a possible reason for deriving “ground” from “red,” suggests that the land may have contained iron and thus had a reddish appearance. Similarly, some authorities who hold that adam (Adam, man) is derived from adom (red) have speculated that Adam may have had reddish-colored skin.

However, note the connection presented in Genesis 2:7: “God proceeded to form the man [adam] out of dust from the ground [adamah] and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man [adam] came to be a living soul.” Is the Bible here discussing the color of the soil or trying to indicate the hue of the first man’s skin? No. The key linkage is between “man” and “ground.” God’s Word was focusing attention on the fact that man was from the ground; he was a groundling or an earthling. All of Adam was from the same source​—his skin, his hair, his eyes, his teeth, and so forth. No matter what their texture or color, all of Adam’s body parts were from the same ground. They were not all reddish just because the soil may have been. After Adam sinned, God told him what would happen to him outside the Garden of Eden: “You [will] return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”​—Gen. 3:19.

Consequently, Adam’s skin may have been reddish, or it may not have been. Since the basic relationship between adam (Adam, man) and adamah (ground) at Genesis 2:7 stressed that Adam was an earthling, from the ground, his skin color could have been any of the various hues we find today among peoples earth wide.

A fundamental fact that we should not overlook is that all humans have descended from the first man, Adam. All persons​—whether their skin is red, olive, brown, black, white or yellow—​are equally linked, by descent, with Adam. We are all his children. The Bible says: “[God] made out of one man [Adam] every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth.” (Acts 17:26) The genetic makeup that God gave to Adam was such that extensive variety could develop among his offspring, variety in their hair color and texture, skin